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Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Here are a few quick thoughts on what Premiere Tuesday says about the renewal/cancellation landscape. These are based on prelims and I probably will not get around to updating this page with the finals, but I'm trying to anticipate some things that could happen in finals.

Name

R%

True

Proj

Target

Aired

Skew

Law and Order True Crime

51%

1.18

0.89

0.88

1

35%

This one looks like a candidate to adjust down, so it may be in the low-40's or so after finals. Anyway, it was a bit of an underwhelming start but not quite as bad as The Brave on Monday. Though it had a much larger lead-in, the "effective lead-in" difference is a lot smaller because True Crime is leading out of a DVR-heavy scripted series. Like The Brave, it hopes to pick up some ABC viewers in week two as Dancing with the Stars gives way to newbie Kevin (Probably) Saves the World.

Name

R%

True

Proj

Target

Aired

Skew

Lethal Weapon

89%

1.22

1.11

0.83

1

36%

The Mick

49%

0.87

0.80

0.80

1

41%

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

33%

0.79

0.72

0.80

1

48%

The NBC-owned veteran Brooklyn survived the bubble last year and looks weaker now than it did a year ago, so it's probably correct to mark it as an underdog out of the gate (at least on Fox). It's probably gonna need some help from the younger comedies' struggles. Speaking of which, sophomore The Mick will be an interesting one to watch. True was high on it last year when it was at 8:30 with pretty bad surroundings, but you'd like to see a little more in this spot. I would argue this wasn't really any better than the 1.0 where Scream Queens started last season, considering they had the same raw 1.2 lead-in. Mick should hold up better than SQ, but how much better?

Name

R%

True

Proj

Target

Aired

Skew

Bull

59%

0.96

0.88

0.83

1

16%

NCIS: New Orleans

56%

0.94

0.86

0.83

1

15%

Welp, if Scorpion scored out at a 48% on Monday, I don't think these numbers should be a huge surprise, because Bull and NCIS: New Orleans didn't look much better on Tuesday. Once again, I'm guessing these numbers will take a big uptick pretty quickly; if the drama department keeps underachieving, that will be reflected in the targets starting next week. With the comedies overachieving and dramas looking soft so far, it's starting to look like we could have an imbalance reminiscent of the CBS of several years ago, when How I Met Your Mother and Two and Half Men were in their primes. But I still wouldn't completely rule out one of these three finding its way into trouble down the line. They have not impressed so far. Again, it may help to have Dancing with the Stars out of the way next week.